Scuba Diving, Borneo Reef World

I went scuba diving last week and didn't meet any sharks. I did, however, snorkel among plastic bottles and baby diapers. Such is the state of the waters at the islands off Kota Kinabalu. Now that the timber is gone, the oil and gas are 'hijacked' and the palm oil prices have dropped, it is more crucial than ever for Sabah to safeguard the last remaining resources--its rainforests, beaches and seas. And yet, a walk along Tanjung Aru Beach is a saddening experience. There's thrash everywhere and the air stinks. Why have the food stalls on that beach? Why can't it be a park?

Anyway, here are some pics from my first scuba dive. I was too nervous (hate deep blue waters) to really enjoy myself, and I had trouble equalizing the pressure; my ears hurt and I feared that my eardrums would pop. I thought I'd panic and forget how to replace the the oxygen regulator so I cheated by holding on to it all the time. The water wasn't as clear that day because of the rain we've been having, but we did see some colorful fishes (one had colorful dots AND stripes, the full monty!) and corals. It's a different world underwater but I was relieved when I saw the poles and flippers because it meant we were near the surface. I think I'll stick to snorkelling.

Check Borneo Reef World's website here.

The boat that took us to the pontoon.



Crash course by the dive master.


The pontoon, largest in South East Asia, measures 888 sq meters.

Puffer Fish

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have noticed that I've toned down quite a bit. I don't twitter or facebook and sometimes I am tempted to post whatever I like but I'm trying to keep this blog more of a food blog. However, try as I do, I still can't help posting about things that interest me.

I think the youngest child is blessed in many ways: parents are older, wiser, maybe financially better off, but the same pros can be cons too. We've already been there and done that with the older kids. The mountains, the sea, the rivers, the pets, horse-riding, the islands, fishing. And with the large gap between the first two kids and the last, we've lost our energy and passion for things that we used to enjoy doing, like the outdoors and even board games. So we've decided to spend more time outdoors with our youngest, putting aside all things on Sunday noons. We did that straightaway yesterday, by going to the Karambunai Lagoon 40 minutes away, despite some reluctance deep inside because it was a melting, glaring 33 C afternoon.

It was too hot to fish (there's a jetty for that), so while Wey went scooping the many fishes under the jetty, his aged parents dozed under the trees. Karambunai Lagoon is great, I love it there except for the sandflies. There are no red ants and the place is well-maintained by the hotel. The water looked clear but when I got in, the sand wasn't that clean.  

We had lots of bites and Hub caught 2 small lai mung (Yi, was thinking of how you always get the first and most fish). I wasn't fishing. Everytime I dropped my line and drew it up, the bait was gone. I ended up throw the prawns into the sea, just to see the different fishes that came up to nibble. A couple of guys nearby were using fishing rods and drawing in a fish (very small ones) every 10 seconds. Then they caught a puffer fish and left it lying around because they said it'll last 4 hours out of water and they'll throw it back before they go home because they didn't want it to get on their hooks again.

It looked so pitiful, eyes all sepet (slit eyed, like me) and there were teardrop-like things at the corner of each eye.

It started to puff...


...and puff, like it was going to explode. It also made puffing noises and spewed out a jet of water.

I think it looked like a bird, with a 3-D face (fish have only 2-D? You know what I mean) and look, it had buck teeth. It looked almost human, sad and resigned.

I borrowed the fish to photograph it and after a while, I told them I had lost it. I forgot to take a photo of it deflating and swimming back to the sea.

Josie's Durian Farm

This has been such a looong holiday! And that's one nice thing about Malaysia--we get so many public holidays.

We were home playing Scrabble for the first time in don't-know-how-many years (tricked Hub and Wey to play with me, citing pre-dementia and the need for brain exercise), when Y called and said we better rush to her friend's durian farm if we want some King Of Fruits. The direction was to go up the hill in Bukit Padang, then down and turn right at the junction, then go on the road for about 5 minutes until a small road on the left with a sign that says Jalan Lomudu, I think, and Dog Training Kennel. Just opposite to Country Shangri-la (I think), a new housing. Go on the small sealed road, past the dog training center on the left, and after less than 2 minutes the road will fork left and right. Take the left road that goes downhill and you will soon see a sign that says "Private Property" on the barbed gate. That's where Josie, the owner, will meet you if she's there. Her mobile no is 019 820 7941. On week days she's a busy lawyer so call her on weekends. Her durians are expected to last until end of Oct but don't count on my estimation. Hurry there before the fruits are gone. It's crazy that we have a durian farm nearly at our doorstep--the drive to Bukit Padang is 10-15 minutes, from there to the farm is 5-7 minutes. Thank you Josie, for fulfilling our dreams.

As lovers of durians, it was exciting to be in a durian farm. It's like Japanese ladies in LV stores, I guess. Josie had some problem getting workers to pick up the fruits from the jungle floor so she roped in a couple of her nephews. We were given two durians to sample. The first was wet and bland but the second was very good, with medium-thick pulpy flesh and good fragrance. Wheelbarrows of durians kept arriving from the jungle and we were free to pick. The big ones, nearly 3 kgs, cost RM8/US$2 while the smaller ones are RM20/US$5.40 for 3. I'd say the big ones are a better deal. In KK, we pay about RM10/US$2.70 to RM18/US$4.90 per kg and a medium-sized durian is about 1.5 kg. However, different types of durian trees are grown in the orchard and they have no idea which tree is D24 or tembaga susu (milk durian), so you may not get what you like. Also, the trees were planted in the 80s, before the new species of grafted trees were available.

We walked a short distance into the orchard, which was hilly (durian trees thrive on hilly terrain), and came out fully appreciative of the work behind growing and harvesting these heavenly fruits. The durian is truly not an easy, ordinary fruit to grow and harvest. It's so grand and wild, it can't be farmed and has to be grown in its natural habitat, the jungle.The trees grow very tall (over 10 metres) by the time they fruit so it's not feasible to pick the fruits, leaving no option but to wait for them to drop. This means the fruits will roll into ravines and thick undergrowth (snakes!) from where workers will have to search and bring to a collecting area. This also means that at any time you may get killed or at least get your head busted by a falling durian. We heard a few fruits fall around us while we were there. We decided that we will not 1) haggle with durian sellers now that we know how hard it is to harvest these fruits 2) start that dream durian orchard; just too much work. On top of all that hard work, durians are bitten by bugs, eaten by squirrels, susceptible to jungle fires, thieves and diseases. And some trees can fruit twice a year, but most only once a year.

When you think of it, this fruit truly deserves to be the King of Fruits. It is a fruit like no other in looks and taste and to those who describe it as eating ice-cream in a filthy toilet, I hope they continue thinking that and leave durians to people like me. Just last week, Lily, who's from China, was initiated by us into eating the sukong jungle durian. She hesitatingly bit off the pulpy orange flesh, widened her eyes at the taste and flavor, then closed her eyes and went "Mmmmm...so good....soooo gooddd..this is too goooddd." Prior to this, her favorite fruit was China peaches, a subtly-flavored fruit compared to the intensely perfumed durian.

Btw, somebody please tell Anthony Bourdain (who also went, "Mmm..amazing.." when he ate durians on one of his recent shows. He seemed genuine about it) that durians are opened by splicing the cavity lines apart with a small knife and not chopped by a parang into two crosswise like a watermelon. Yes, the new grafted durians are harder to open as the join lines between each cavity section are not as pronounced as in old-fashioned durians. I have been tempted to chop my durians too. And please, Anthony, eat durians with your hands, don't use a spoon. That's like eating an apple with a fork.

Have you noticed that tropical fruits are usually big, multiple fruits while temperate fruits are usually small individual fruits? I think God made them according to the cultures of the people living in each place. In Asia, eating is very communal and large fruits like the nangka, tarap, durian, pineapple, cempedak, papaya are shared unlike an apple or a strawberry which can only feed one each. Wait. In Asia, fruits like apples, oranges, pears etc are sliced and shared too. Fruit for thought.

If you get your durians from Josie, remember that you need to keep them for a day or two because they are fresh off the tree. That's the hard part. I have to wait a couple of days to eat those 18 durians.


Fruits like berries have to look pretty and colorful to attract consumers but the durian is made to look menacing and smell 'odd' (although if you are a durian lover, it is heavenly) for a reason. Duri means thorns and all those thorns are needed to ward off jungle animals (and humans) who know what lies within that shell. So for those who have never eaten durians, just imagine how much better durians taste compared to berries!


Look at that!


Workers search for durians in ravines such as this.






Our pick.


The scenery is great too.

Wey has an alternative for mace sprays, but they are kind of bulky and biodegradable:

Indian Boy

I was searching for some photos on my computer yesterday and these old photos caught my eye. I think Yi was the photographer, Ming the writer, director and editor. Wey was the willing actor, always ready to be Ming's slave. Ming is the clown of the family (actually we have three clowns including me and Yi). He exasperates me like no other, and my hair's turning white because of him. When he was 12, I dragged him to KL to test for ADD because he just wouldn't write a test paper completely even if he knew the answers. He not only wasn't ADD or dyslexic, the results showed his IQ was only 2 points short of superior! This is the guy we all turn to when the computer is down, when we get new gadgets and we are too lazy to read and analyze the instruction manuals (I truly hate doing that; it's a world wonder that I can blog) and when I need to reach up for objects because he is so tall. Anyway, here's his 'cartoon' strip done 2 1/2 years ago. We had just returned from a superb northern Indian dinner at Naan in Shangri-la's Rasa Ria Resort at Tuaran (an hour's drive away) and Yi was to return to Melbourne the next day to start her sophomore year. The restaurant gave every diner a stick-on mole (I don't know what it's called in Indian) and we had fun wearing our moles all evening. This strip was inspired by a fun Indian-themed evening.

Originally titled The Unknown Evil Indian Boy Show by Ming, I decided to give it a more politically correct title.












Look at Wey holding his stomach like it's for real.

---------------------FIN---------------------------


The moles on some of our faces seem to tell the past and the future very accurately (cryptic statement).


My three monkeys.


I have a pic of him where he honestly looked like his face was going to burst, and he was so blown up he hardly had any features. He didn't stop at 4 plates. That' s why we haven't been back to Naan. Excellent Indian food though.


This is sure to make her call me because she hasn't lately.

Deep Sea Fishing!

I've not been able to sit in front of the computer because I'm still rocking and giddy from the overnight deep-sea fishing trip we took last weekend.


Setting out, with KK's skyline behind. Wey still in school uniform.

We were so lucky to meet Bernard who organized a fishing trip when he heard how Yi loved to fish. Bernard has a 70 feet boat so last Saturday at 2 pm, we left KK on a 3-hour journey to our destination 330 degrees northwest of Sabah. We've done night fishing, day-night fishing about an hour off KK but never deep-sea fishing overnight.

We arrived in the middle of the ocean, no land to be seen, at 5 pm. The sea was choppy but bearable. Wedge, with some help from Bernard, drew in the first catch (on our side of the boat), a little red grouper. Almost at the same time, Yi got a big pisangpisang. There's something about that girl--she always gets the first and the most fish whenever we go fishing. We aren't frequent fisher people so we only used hooks and lines, and we found it really hard to feel the bites because we were casting from 60 to 150 feet deep.





Around 8 pm, I shoved a mouthful of rice and fried fish into my mouth and immediately felt nauseous (lesson: never eat oily food or, better still, don't eat at all). Took a sea-sick pill and went straight to my bunk. The bunk was swaying left and right. The sea got rougher through the night, with rolling waves. I imagined myself in a large hammock. After a while, it didn't work because I wanted to get off the hammock. I thought of my friend KLK, who gets giddy even when I drive. To town. I thought: why did I come on this trip?? I thought of you all, safely on land, eating and drinking happily and I wished I was home watching that Prison Break Second Season, Part 2 VCD I had bought in Shenzhen. Oh, misery!


Expression of a person who's about to throw up. Only Hub and Wey did not get very sick.

Around mid-night, I got up because I couldn't sleep. Hub was still fishing, alongwith the two Filipino helpers. (It's great with them around. They help us hook the bait on, take the fish off, untangle the line...we just have to cast the line and wait!) I dropped a line in for the first time and within 5 min, caught a reasonably big 'fire dot' which is also called 'Moses Perch'. Or is it bream? Then within 10 min, a small barracuda! Hub also started hauling fishes in. It's interesting to know that at different times, you get different types of fish. We caught groupers, breams and perches in the afternoon, squid, barracuda and king mackeral (tenggiri) at night and white fish (in 150 feet waters) in the morning.


One of the Filipinos hauled in a huge king mackeral of about 6 kg! Several others also caught these giants. I wondered if we could be so lucky too (we were not). Suddenly I felt sick and threw up overboard...that was the end of my fishing. From then on, I just curled up in the bunk waiting for daylight. Daylight came, a glorious sunrise, but I was so weak and nauseous because the sea had gotten rougher and I wished I was home. Rolling waves are much harder to bear than choppy waves. And the sea looked black even in the day. Probably because we were now in very deep waters. Even Yi, who puked 3 times, gave up fishing because it takes quite a while to draw up your line when you cast it 150 feet deep!


L to R: a special red snapper, 'silver thread', grouper, pisangpisang, baby barracuda, whitefish, trevally and 'fire dot', a kind of bream. Or is it perch?
That's part of our catch (except for the snapper). All-in we looted about one bucketful of fish, most of them caught by Yi. The other 10 guys? Their cooler boxes were full!

This little guy is called 'pingpong racket' because he's so round. Delicious steamed and sashimied, so do look out for him!



We survived the seasickness, the sun, the toilet and each others' stink (because we didn't shower or brush our teeth). I looked as sick as I felt.

Now that I've done it, I know I will NEVER EVER go deep-sea fishing again. NO WAY.